Lead campaign for solutions: Floating voters asked
Floating voters must lead a campaign to demand from political leaders workable solutions to the perennial floods in Accra, as the 2016 electioneering season heats up, the President of the Full Gospel Church International (FGCI), Bishop Samuel Noi Mensah, is advocating.
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“While many people would vote along party lines, floating voters must ensure only courageous, visionary leaders who wish to find lasting solutions to the flood situations are elected into office.
“Are we not tired of repeating the cycle annually with monotonous speeches, when we could have gathered a team of engineers, camp them, and task them to come up with workable solutions that would address the challenges once and for all? The Bishop queried.
Bishop Mensah who is also a leadership and governance consultant, told the Daily Graphic in Tema at the weekend that while citizens’ irresponsibility could not be ruled out of the country’s present predicament in connection with a complete leadership, failure could equally be attributed.
“Accra’s floods have been with us since the 1960s with successive governments making several commitments, some of which were recently reproduced by the Daily Graphic, yet in 2016, people are still dying as a result of floods,” he said.
Describing the recurring floods in Accra as a man-made disaster, Bishop Mensah suggested that the failure of successive governments to crack the whip for fear of losing elections had bred an indisciplined society.
“Humans by nature are disobedient, but if a strong leadership exists to ensure the right things are done, people would conform,” Bishop Mensah stressed.
Partisan Politics
He indicated that politicians had succeeded in dividing the nation along partisan lines.
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Majority of the people, Bishop Mensah said, had disconnected from the country because there was no room for progress.
“The two major political parties are engaged in a battle to pull each other down, forgetting the need to look at a greater vision of developing the country in unity.
“People are forgetting that the failure of a government is the failure of Ghana,” Bishop Mensah added.
He reckoned that no one political party gets an overwhelming majority in the country’s national elections.
“The percentage has always been 50 plus one, so any president that comes to rule must be able to bring the 49 per cent on board to drive the country’s development.
“We must be able to overcome the partisan politics monster. Until we do so, our development would continue to remain at a slow pace,” Bishop Mensah counselled.
Partnership
He was of the view that the faith sector had been left out of the country’s transformational agenda, even though the people governing and those being governed belong to churches, mosques and temples, among other religious establishments.
Calling for the need for the government to partner faith-based organisations, Bishop Mensah suggested that governance ought to be a three-legged school which encompassed; politics, society and the church or religious groups.
“In an attempt to change the mind set and attitudes of the people, the role of the church cannot be overruled”, Bishop Mensah underscored.
Faith-based organisations, he said, had built more schools and health institutions prior to the government absorbing such, “hence, we must know that their role is very critical in national development.
Writer’s email: della.russel@graphic.com.gh